A Little About Anime: Combination of Sci-Fi, Old Myths and Popular Beliefs

“Rule number one of anime,” Simon said. He sat propped up against a pile of pillows at the foot of his bed, a bag of potato chips in one hand and the TV remote in the other. He was wearing a black T-shirt that said I BLOGGED YOUR MOM and a pair of jeans that were ripped out in one knee. “Never screw with a blind monk”

-Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

For all of you who know anime, you’ll probably agree with what Simon said. Anime, the phenomenon that started invading the television world since the 60s and knew its apogee after Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001), is loved by people all around the world, and especially by me. Why? That’s because of the originality of its themes and the mind-blowing content. Contrary to what some people think, anime is not just for children. It contains violence, blood, some dirty jokes, and some “disturbing” content. However, most of the movies can be watched by kids with a certain level of maturity, because it’s never something a child can’t handle.

Let’s start by the simple fact that most anime movies are a combination of Sci-Fi, old myths and popular beliefs. For instance, we have Dragon Ball Z, one of my personal favorite series, which combines all the good material from a martial arts movie, with a lot of what constitutes a good superhero movie, and finally bring us all the Sci-Fi content people enjoy. How awesome is a kung-fu style warrior with superpowers fighting aliens and androids sounds? That’s right, pretty damn awesome.

Now, after talking about one of Akira Toriyama’s top hit series (also available in manga comics), I’ll briefly talk about the magic of Hayao Miyazaki. He brought us about five legendary movies, that have all made IMDb’s top 250 movies and all with a Metascore above 80. Miyazaki’s original way is based on the fantastic, with an important existence of the Spirit world. His movies are both entertaining and extremely moving, and the characters you see are really weird and fascinating. I’d need to write a full article just about Miyazaki’s way, but these are some brief facts that cause his success.

The only sad thing about anime, is that a lot of good series and movies are underrated. For instance, one of my personal favorite Hunter-x-hunter-2011anime series, Hunter X Hunter, hasn’t been watched by a lot of people, even though it’s for both children and teenagers, and has some pretty decent stuff in it. If anime was encouraged by media outside Japan, more people will appreciate its originality, and probably watch it.

Anime never brings us boring things to watch. The fights between characters are decently crafted (“An eye for an eye my friend” ), the romance is well built up (“I’ll make you so in love with me, that every time our lips touch, you’ll die a little death”), the sci-fi is really innovative, and the spirit world can be really fascinating (“Even when our eyes are closed, there’s a whole world that exists outside ourselves and our dreams”).

In a nutshell, I love anime, and so should you.

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